Science discovers basic identities. But, the identities it discovers just are the way things are. Why is a thing, the thing it is? It just is. As Bishop Butler put it: ‘Every thing is what it is, and not another thing’.

This sounds mysterious, but it is not.

Why is visible light actually electromagnetic radiation rather than something else entirely? Why is temperature mean molecular kinetic energy, rather than something else? Science does not offer explanations for basic identities. Rather, the discovery is that two descriptions refer to one and the same thing; or that two different measuring instruments measure in fact one and the same thing. There is no basic set of laws from which to derive that visible light is electromagnetic radiation or temperature is mean molecular kinetic energy.

Why is Venus Venus? Why is the Morning Star identical to the Evening Star? It just is.

Moving, causing, surviving. That’s why animals have a central nervous system. And that’s how a religious person ought to lose faith in God: on the move.

Simulation (mimicry) is included under ‘moving’.

The best way for a religious person who already doubts his faith, but doesn’t know how to go on, is to enter into learning relationships with atheists. Such relationships, mediated by goodwill and the sincere desire to learn, allow the religious doubter to ‘try out’ atheism, to simulate it for its effects on self and others. Multiple simulations should be attempted. Slow cure is all important. These experiences must be largely positive to induce attachment.

Sudden and dramatic loss of faith almost never happens, if ever, for the reward system in the brain needs to re-tune itself out of the current attractor-category (religion) and into the new attractor-category (atheism). This change takes time; sometimes years.

To lose faith in God, you need to do something. You do this by first copying others who are already masters of the game.

How do we think about reality in a way that improves upon the old ways?

There is good news here: it is not entirely up to you to improve reality. Your children, and their children will do the job. So, sit back a little. Enjoy the ride!

Human beings have the unique capacity to play life’s ‘ratchet game’. Children learn the best society has to offer, and can improve upon it. And, your children’s children can start where your children left off. And so on.

My kids are already way ahead of me, since they started where I left off long, long ago, and also vastly ahead of cro-magnon humans. By contrast, chimpanzees start where their ancestors left off, and stay there. They don’t move from this place (chimps are still very cute, though).

Thus, humans can produce science and technology, and pass it on to their descendents. This gives human beings the chance to deploy science and AI tech to create increasingly accurate representations of ‘mind’, ‘DNA’, ‘autism’, ‘pain’, ‘happiness’, and so on. The ratchet game takes us beyond the familiar into exciting new territories.

(I wonder: Can academic philosophy play life’s ‘ratchet game’? It seems to me that philosophy is not terribly good at reaching out to other disciplines, and learning from them in the way that children naturally learn from parents.)